The Process of Saltwater Acclimation

    The fish have arrived in mail today to the classroom. They arrived in a styrofoam box  with a heating pad against them to keep the marine animals alive in there trip. There are eight fish and one sea-duster,one crab and one sea anemone. The first thing to do to get them ready to enter the tank is to put the bags with the marine animals in the fish tank water so that the water within the bags can equal out in temperature as the water already in the tank. After about 10-20 min one by one a bag can be removed and they tops of the bags can be cut off. A little bit of the water from the tank is then added to the water in the bags and put back into the tank where it they will sit from about and hour. When the hour is up then each animal can be released into the tank.

Pros and Cons of Ecotourism

     Brianna Heaphy

     October 15, 2015 

     Ms. Goodrich

     Ecotourism is defined as traveling responsibility to organic areas to protect the environment. Ecotourism is about conservation and sustainable travel. By following ecotourism guidelines, people should build cultural and environmental awareness.  Ecotourism is about protecting the environment such as rain forests, islands and our oceans. The islands such as the Galapagos islands are very important to keep protected because of all the species on the islands. Trash should not be thrown on the beaches or along roadsides. If animals are in captivity they should be treated well and have clean environments where they can feel safe. Another example of Ecotourism being affected is the boats in the oceans. The boats put a lot of gasoline into the oceans and it effects the marine life by putting toxins and poisons into the oceans killing marine animals. The ocean spills from ships is causing the same problem as gasoline. Ecotourism is important because it helps to keep the world cleaner and a better place.

• Minimize physical, social, behavioral, and psychological impacts.
• Build environmental and cultural awareness and respect.
• Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts.
• Provide direct financial benefits for conservation.
• Generate financial benefits for both local people and private industry.
• Deliver memorable interpretative experiences to visitors that help raise sensitivity to host countries' political, environmental, and social climates.
• Design, construct and operate low-impact facilities.
• Recognize the rights and spiritual beliefs of the Indigenous People in your community and work in partnership with them to create empowerment.

     The "green washing" ecosystem tours are environmental tours that do not give a lot of information on conservation as well as how to protect the environment. For example, the article I read talks about Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. The animals that live in the park are not safe and live in a fake environment, of fake trees and plants. The tour guides never give enough information on the animals and how they are treated in closed environments. 

"Disney spent $800 million dollars to transform 500 acres of central Florida cow pasture into an African savanna, with fake wide-trunk Baobab Trees, a Zulu village and some one thousand real imported animals. This largest of Disney's theme parks is designed to let the American public "go on safari" without leaving the shores of the United States. Although it has won praise from zoo-industry officials, Animal Kingdom opened in mid 1988 amidst protests from animal rights groups and an investigation by the US Department of Agriculture into the deaths of some dozen animals, including representatives of endangered species. Two West African Crowned Cranes were run over by tour vehicles."  - Greenwashing Travel: Different Shades of Green.

Green washing tours are always displayed as very good and environmentally friendly. Ecotourism is controlled by travel agents, tour operators,  airlines, cruise lines, large hotels and hotel chains. Each of these bring a different effect to the environment. They all affect the animals both on land and Marine life. The green washing tour guides and the companies do not try to help, they do not say what they want should be and do not explain all the information about the animals and the conservation. They make up information to make it seem like the animals are in good hands.  

    The benefits of ecotourism is helping people to understand conservation and how to be environmentally friendly. The USAID ( United States Agency for International Development) is helping to make sure all the animals environments are safe to live in. Ecotourism is a big part of human life because, humans go to the zoo and into the ocean as well as islands and private areas. Ecotourism is important because these tours are very good and have importance to them. they help visitors to understand better about conservation and the environments of the animals. Benefits of ecotourism is helping teach visitors everything about a certain species. The role of USAID is to help support the national parks and giving new supplies and trained staff. They make sure that the staff members know how to take care of the animals and how the should be treated. The USAID wants whats best for the national parks and tries to make all of the visitors welcome, but at the same time make sure the visitors learn something. The number one responsibility of a tour guide it make sure the animals are treated with respect by them as well as the visitors.                                                                                                                                                                                

    A good agency should have trained tour guides. They should be bale to describe everything about conservation of the animals as well as how the animals are treated. A green washing company can be noticed if the company if the tours seem to not be planed out. The animals environments can sometimes be dirty and to small for the specific species. To be environmentally friendly a tour should have barriers along the sides of the trail that the cars go through. This is so the animals can be protected from being run over of injured. tour guides should make sure that they environments are safe and clean for the animals so that they feel they are being cared for. Making sure the wildlife has big areas of land will help them to feel more like wild animals and not caged up. Tour guides should explain to visitors how they help the environments if they do and they should say if their animals are either taken from the wild or where born in captivity. Telling people that the animals are being taken care of tell them that its an Eco friendly agency.  

   Ecotourism is important because, it helps people to understand how many different wildlife companies there are and how they treat the animals within the parks. For example Disney's Animal Kingdom, Sea world, Busch Gardens, Zoo's and Aquariums. They all have different animals and they treat them all differently and have different views of ecotourism. Animal Kingdom for example has killed a few of its animals with the safari cars they are considered a green washing company because they do not have safe enclosures. Busch Gardens is environmentally friendly company because the animals have acres of land to run around. They have the freedom too be free. There are also tracks that the cars stay on that have barriers so that the animals can not be hurt. Many common Zoo's are green washing companies because they are dirty and the enclosures of the animals is  far to small for each species. Other tours that are Eco friendly are whale watches and helping clean beaches. Some green washing tours that are horrible is air travel and car travel through certain wildlife areas. 
   

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

Brianna Heaphy

September 17, 2015

Ms. Goodrich

Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

            There are many fish and other marine life living in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. The different oceans are home to all types of marine life. The Bluefin tuna is a very popular fish that lives in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. The Bluefin Tuna is from the bony fish family and the Scombridae family; this means they have two dorsal fins a dorsal fin and an anal fin. Each one of the fins have different amount of rays on them to help them swim better. They are extremely fast swimmers and can dive up to 914 feet. The Bluefin tuna can live up to forty years old and can grow up to six to ten feet and one thousand five hundred pounds, it is also known as one of the slowest marine fish to mature. The Bluefin is one of the top predators in the Atlantic. It eats mackerel, herring, flying fish, squid and eels. The female tunas lay eggs on the Gulf of Mexico usually every spring and when they hatch they start to hunt for food right away, Killer whales, pilot whales, sharks and especially humans are the main predators of Tuna. The Bluefin tuna is considered the biggest tuna in the ocean and that why it’s the best for making sushi.

            The Bluefin lives in Open Ocean in the Atlantic. The tuna’s habitat is being affected by all the fishing. The amount of Atlantic tunas is decreasing from the amount of fishing and is causing the tunas to start living alone and they are school fish. The Bluefin tuna travels in schools for protection from other marine animals. The female Tuna nest along the edges of the sea, usually along the coast line in the Mediterranean or the Gulf of Mexico. They females lay up to thirty million eggs. The females eggs are unfertilized which means they are externally fertilized creating eggs. Atlantic tuna are known to be filled with fatty skin that has to much mercury which can be toxic to our bodies. The fatty mercury tunas are killed and eaten even though it is hurting our health but at the same time is hurting the population of the tunas. Because they are being killed  for no reason and it affects both human and marine life.

The Atlantic tunas are being over fished in the Atlantic mostly along the Mediterranean Sea coast lines.  The Japanese are very big on sushi and of course the Atlantic tuna is the main target for sushi and most of the Japanese foods. The tuna are being caught in fishing nets thousands at a time, and because the tuna like to travel in schools they fishermen catch even more than if they traveled individually. The Bluefin tunas are decreasing in amounts because of so much fishing. The Bluefin is an open ocean swimmer so there are not many issues with trash and damage to these animals. The Bluefin tuna is very important to our stock market and can be sold for up to 1.75 million per fish depending on the size. If the fishing men keep catching them by dozens we will lose money and the Bluefin will be completed gone from the Atlantic Ocean. It will cause many issues for the market places and businesses, and could even shut them down from the decrease levels on customers due to no tuna fish.

Mollusk Analysis

   The adaption and variation in mollusks all have different and looks and feels but they all have things in common. The morphological feature of the mollusks which means soft body is the feature that they heave more than two cell layers, tissues and organs. Because of the mollusks soft body they have to be very careful because they are so fragile and can get hurt or even killed very easily. They do not have the protection like crabs and animals with shells do, they have to learn to survive on there own without a lot of protection. The mollusks are split into classes called class Gastropoda, Class Bivalvia, and class Cephalopoda. Class Gastropoda includes the species snails and slugs, class Bivalvia is for clams and oysters and the Cephalopoda class is for bigger organisms like squid and octopus. The body semen try for the worm and the squid we dissected was symmetry but the clam was not it was more like a big blob of goo. The worm and squid were both equal if you cut them in half but the clam was not at all. All the dissections we did have very different textures and shapes and even smells. The worm was long and not slimy it was hard and thick skinned. The squid was slimy and squishy more like a sponge. The squid had a few hard parts to it where the worn did not. The clam had a hard shell and a squishy, slimy inside like the squid did, but the squid had eyes and was could swim and is mush bigger. The clams mantle is what keeps it protected from other creatures that may harm it. The mantle also helps from the clam being damaged from tides and currents. The Locomotion of a squid and clam compare is that they both have the same vascular system. Water goes in and out of the there bodies and help them move. A squid and octopus have camouflage because it helps protect them from predictors. Bivalves and Cephalopods do not have camouflage because they have shells that help protect the, and they can hide away were the squids and octopus can not. Bivalves eat by using there gills and they filter feed. Cephalopods eat other organisms like fish, worms and plants. Mollusks and humans are alike they have nervous systems and reproductive systems we share in common. Mussels have a special adaption to stay on shore they use there foot and they hold onto the rock or land. They have very strong leg that holds on and keeps them steady for a while. Octopus have very large brains and are considered by many that they are stupid but in fact they can be smart. They have a very good memory they can tell the difference between colors and toys. They use left and right like we do but they use there eyes to tell the difference. Mollusks help keep our oceans clean they help with the bacteria and mess. They are a big source of food for other organisms and helps keep other organisms reproducing. And there shells are used multiple times when one dies another moves in. 

Starfish Dissect

The Sea star also known as a starfish are beautiful creatures that life on our oceans floors. The Starfish is from the phylum Echoinodermata and it means that it is radially symmetrical coelenterate meaning every side of its body is the same looking. The phylum also consists of Sea Urchins, Sea cucumbers and even sand dollars because they all have the same type of systems. 

1. Sea Fish are in fact not fish at all because they don't swim they move around on the bottom with tube feet that are helpful for sticking to the ground 
2. The Coscinasterias Calamaria also known as the eleven-armed sea star has an arm spread that can go up to 30 cm and it can grow up to 14 arms and a sun star can grow up to 40 arms 
3. Sea stars do not have blood instead they have a water vascular system that helps them to move 
4. A Sea stars eyes are on the ends of each leg but they are only used to tell if its light of dark
5. A Sea star is born when egg and sperm collide together when they are released into the water a Sea star larvae are not much bigger than pinheads and 
the larvae float in the water until they grow a bit and they sink to the bottom. 

6. Some species of sea starts do care for there young until they grow but most let there young go and grow up on there own 

7. The Sun Sea star  are the head of the sea start family as they grow older more arms grow 
8. There is a sea star called the  leather sea star it isn’t prickly to the touch, but it sure is slippery. This sea star releases mucus over much of its body
9. The crown-of-thorns sea star can harm even humans who touch its long spines. A sting from one of these sea stars can be very painful a person will lose feeling if stung
10. Sea stars always grow back arms if they are cut off or broken and at some point if all the arms fall off they will all grow back if the core is not damaged 

New England Aquarium

 Marine Animal Behavior 

Some of the marine animals acted differently than others. For example the penguins spent a lot of time out of the water and on land where they made lots of noises. The seals where the same way they where loud but they where swimming most of the time. The other marine animals where all fish every single type of species looked and acted differently there where some that swam fast and others that where very slow. There where also some fish that where huge and some small and they did not eat each other they all swim together without harming each other. It is because the scuba divers do feed each animal individually so they all get what they need. Lots of the species also live in different habitats, most of which just live in the open ocean but there where some that live in the rain forest, rivers, and lakes, And depending on there environment depends on what they need to survive and how there behavior in the environments differ from others. Such as how they eat, what the look like and how they survive.

 The conservation of the marine animals is a good thing at some points and not at others. All the marine animals in aquariums are usually taken if they where injured or born there. If an animal is born within a aquarium they will never be able to survive in the wild because they wont grow up that way. The conservation does help for scientific research and for people to see what lives in our oceans, lakes and rivers and how some can be dangerous and other harmless.
We get to realize that they need protection and we need to help.
We also get to see how each animal survives and what they eat and how they live there lives in water. Its pretty cool, but the fish never really get a chance to live in the open ocean they only get so much space and i am sure it just gets boring.

http://www.neaq.org/index.php

I learned that each animal gets feed individually by a scuba diver, i never knew that. And i found out that the animals don't eat each other i always thought they they did.

Ocean Seaweed

Structure of Seaweed 

http://oceanlink.info/biodiversity/seaweeds/seaweed

a.      Why are seaweeds assigned to the Protista rather than Plantae? 

Seaweeds are assigned to the Protista family rather than the Plantae family because. They are neither plants or animals. Seaweed lack a  specialized vascular system they dont produce leaves, stems or roots. They dont need the conducting system because they get there nutrients and fluids from the water. The seaweed has four basic parts holdfasts which takes place of the roots on a plant. The stripe is the name of the steam, the leaves of the seaweeds are called blades. Floats also known as pneumatocysts are what help the seaweed to float on the water surface. The whole body structure is called the thallus. The most important ecological roles filled by seaweed is that they are a food source for marine animals such as sea urchins and fishes. The seaweed also gives a shelter and protection to many sea creatures such as small fish, sea urchins and other small creatures. Just like humens seaweed gets stress. Several types of environmental stress is that the seaweed can not travel with the tides and are exposed to air pressure and weather conditions which can hurt the seaweed. The cells of adult seaweed plants are diploid, meaning that they contain two sets of chromosomes. Diploid plants are called sporophytes because they produce and release spores. Spores are produced by meiosis, a cell division process that halves the number of chromosomes and forms new cells containing only one set of chromosomes. After they are released from the sporophyte, the haploid spores settle and grow into male and female plants called gametophytes. The gametophytes are also haploid, and they produce gametes which are the egg and sperm. When the sperm and egg are released the fertilize in the water than creates seaweed.  

Four Human benefits of Seaweed are,, 

• Seaweed is chock-full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, and can be tasty. For at least 1,500 years, the Japanese have enrobed a mixture of raw fish, sticky rice, and other ingredients in a seaweed called nori. The delectable result is a sushi roll.
• Many seaweeds contain anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial agents. Their known medicinal effects have been legion for thousands of years; the ancient Romans used them to treat wounds, burns, and rashes. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the ancient Egyptians may have used them as a treatment for breast cancer.
• Certain seaweeds do, in fact, possess powerful cancer-fighting agents that researchers hope will eventually prove effective in the treatment of malignant tumors and leukemia in people. While dietary soy was long credited for the low rate of cancer in Japan, this indicator of robust health is now attributed to dietary seaweed.
• These versatile marine plants and algae have also contributed to economic growth. Among their many uses in manufacturing, they are effective binding agents (emulsifiers) in such commercial goods as toothpaste and fruit jelly, and popular softeners (emollients) in organic cosmetics and skin-care products. 

Examples of New England Seaweeds

Red seaweed Chondrus crispus

Green seaweed Ulva lactuca

Brown seaweed

Species: Laminaria Digitata

Also know as Kelp 

Photosynthesis of Seaweeds

  In class we did experiments called exploring the rate of photosynthesis. We took a peice of a tree and we put it in a tube and filped the tube into  a beaker of water and we put it under light. The light caused the plant to create bubbles that rised from the plant to the surface of the tube itself. This is the moisture moing up.

·         OceanLink;

·         NOAA Ocean Service;

·         The Seaweed Site.

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seaweed.html

http://oceanlink.info/biodiversity/seaweeds/seaweeds.html

http://oceanlink.info/biodiversity/seaweeds/seaweeds.html

“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.” ― Jacques-Yves Cousteau